In the next three years, giant retailer Amazon will invest $100 million (Rs 500 crore) for the development of its facilities in Indian City, Hyderabad. The project will provide work for more than 3,000 people, according to Provincial Government of Andhra Pradesh.
Alootechie.com reports that John Schoettler, Amazon’s Vice-President, has met recently with Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister for Information Technology in order to set the details of the project. One of the issues discussed at this meeting was apparently the legal status of the land allotted for the new facilities. Amazon already has offices in the region in a 200,000 square feet complex with 3,300 employees. The teams here handle services as ordering, global financing, inventory management and enterprises.
Understandably, the Andhra Pradesh government is supportive of Amazon running an important operation center from the state capital, Hyderabad. The state officials hope that more international technology giants would express the same interest in expanding their business in the region. Recently, Facebook benefited from the same support and established a base of operations in Hyderabad.
Amazon has additional strategies for the Indian market. Apparently, in the first quarter of 2012 Amazon is going to enter on the online retail in India. According to a report published by Times of India, Amazon officials are presently negotiating with the local e-commerce companies like Flipkart.com, LetsBuy.com and Exclusively.in.
The interest in the Indian retail market is not new. The rival eBay managed to acquire Bazee.com seven years ago and is well set here now. The “prize” could be significant, since analysts point out that by 2015 the Indian online retail industry will reach $1.5 billion. Another major player in retail business, Walmart, also announced plans to bring its @WalmartLabs in India, and now opening operation center in Bangalore.
